Let Art COLOR Our World

 

Last September we started thinking about our yearly collaborative, building wide art project.  Although I didn’t know what we were going to do at the time exactly,  I did know that I was going to clear out several buckets of old crayons that had been laying around my room for years.  The kids started the long process of unwrapping crayons at that time.  We generally unwrapped crayons when they got done early on a project and had a few minutes to spare or if they were given some free time.

By January we had the greater majority of the crayons unwrapped.  Now we needed to start designing our project.  After looking for ideas and brainstorming, we decided to make a large mural for one of the display cases in our school’s front hallway.  Not  a lot of people enjoy decorating  our display cases so  the idea was welcomed with open  arms.   The students just had to figure out what the mural was going to be.

They had lots of great ideas that ranged everywhere from a water tower to a Starry Night rendition,  to even a picture of Inman Primary School.  After much thought and discussion,  we decided that a tiger face,  which happens to be our school mascot, would be the best choice.  We just needed to do a little more final designing.

At this point,  all classrooms K-3 got to vote on their favorite design.  Unbelievable to me,   each class voted on the same design.

After that, we got a large piece of Masonite,  which would be our “canvas.”  I took the children’s  design  and painted it onto the Masonite.  Now all the kids had to do was start gluing.  Boy oh boy did it take a lot of glue!!!  We used a special,  extra sticky glue called “Tacky Glue.”  The project took an entire GALLON of Tacky Glue!!!

For the next week or so the kids glued on the background crayons.  Once that part was done,   we got to start on the tiger head.  To give our tiger a little more dimension I used a box cutter and cut the pieces for the tigers nose. I did this part myself to ensure the safety of the students.

The next part was the tiger’s fur.  We decided to crush some crayons for the fur to give it more texture.  This was a really fun part,  a little messy but well worth it. We placed crayons in between 2 boards and the kids stepped on the boards and they did the crushing.

We then filled in the tigers face.  It looked AMAZING!  We were very pleased.

Our final part of the mural was to fill in the word TIGERS with black.  This was one of the toughest parts of all since we found out that we didn’t have enough black crayons.  We searched our classrooms and our homes and just when we finally thought we had enough, we kept coming up short.  Then,  one of the kids came up with the brilliant idea of crushing the black crayons just like we did for the fur on the face so it wouldn’t take as many.  IT WORKED!

When we completed the project it was wonderful to see the smiles on the children’s faces and their sense of accomplishment.  Please take time to stop by Inman  Primary to look at this gorgeous piece of art.  The photos don’t do it justice.

Back to School!

Woo, hoo! We are back to school! After a nice, long summer break we are back in session. It was great having the extra 2 weeks off this summer. I’m very excited to be back with the kids though and ready to get to work of some fantastic art projects.  This year we are starting off by studying Vincent van Gogh at Inman and Fantasy Space Art at Washington.

In the spirit of van Gogh,  I did some sewing this summer and made a “Starry Night”  blouse.  I wore it yesterday and the look on the kids faces when they saw it was priceless!  They were so excited.

I follow an art teacher website by Cassie Stephens and they are having a “What the Art Teacher Wore Back to School Contest”  this week.  Please take a minute to go on and vote for me at the following link:http://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/2015/09/what-art-teachers-woreback-to-art.html     The contest ends this coming week.     Thanks!!

Art Expo, 2015, A New Look!!

In the past our Spring Art Show at Inman Primary has included approximately 3,000 pieces of artwork from our students.  After a visit from the State Fire Marshall’s office,  however,  the IPS art show will be taking on a different look. This year’s art show will be online instead of in our school hallways.  Needless to say,  I was pretty disappointed at first,  but I do understand where he is coming from.  This is a drastic change but  the  safety of our students comes first.  If you have ever attended the Inman art expo,   you know that the artwork has completely covered almost every square inch of wall space available,

As an alternative plan,  we have decided to still hold an Art Expo online.  If you will take a look at the left hand side of this page,  you will notice the headings:  Kindergarten Creations,   Fabulous First Grade,  Sensational 2nd Grade,  Great 3rd Graders,  and Fantastic Fourth Grade.  Simply click on that link and it will take you to the students artwork.  Once you see the students teacher’s names,  it will take you into their class video.

Hope you enjoy the videos!

Washington Art Expo is Underway

Washington Intermediate’s 2014 Art Expo is now underway.  If you have not yet attended,  we hope you will put it on your “TO-DO” list this week.  It runs from 8-4 daily and on Thursday,  April 3rd it runs until 7:00 P.M.

Here is a  link to a sneak preview,  but you will want to come and see everybody’s art up close.

http://animoto.com/play/RHiV0fF07PuB01gPmzlpvA

Our Legacy Installations

As an art teacher,  I have found a lot of interesting blogs and art websites that can be very helpful in the lines of professional development.  One of my favorite sites is the AOE or Art Of Education.  While reading it the other day,  I ran across an article that talked about “Legacy Installations”.  I quickly realized that we are already doing this right here in Red Oak,  Iowa.  In fact,  we have made these for the last 3 years.  While creating these works of art, the children get to experience working together as a team on a piece that will be displayed for years to come, it will be their legacy.  Some of the legacy installations we have made in the past include our bottle cap project and our Chihuly chandelier.  This year our  legacy installation is once again being made partially from recycled materials.   It’s in the form of woven tapestries that go along with the Character Counts program.

I posted about these magnificent works of student artwork a few weeks ago,  but I just wanted to give you an update on the progress we are making.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and plan on coming to our art shows later this spring to see just how beautiful they are.

Turning Trash to Treasures

As we begin our Character Counts large group project this semester,  I have had a lot of fun teaching the younger children how to weave.  Every year this can be a bit of a challenge,  but this year we have taken a different approach and rather than having the students make their own individual weaving project,  it is a group effort.

I have been blessed with a husband that does a little bit of woodworking.  He made some nice big wooden frames for me.  I wanted to have a frame for each color represented in the Character Counts Pillars.  There are 6 of these.  I also wanted to have the frames look  nice with an existing bulletin board in our main hallway.  This entailed giving the frames a thinned acrylic paint stain and then using a wood burning tool to etch designs into them. This was a new skill I had to learn. I was fun but extremely time-consuming.  My husband and I both worked on this part of the project.

Now that the frames are nearly completed, the fun part begins.  This is where I get make a woven tapestry with my K-3 students.  I’m very happy with how our project is starting to look.  The kids are delighted too.

We are attempting to make our weaving project symbolic of the students it represents.    By doing this we have added some old denim since most of the children like to wear blue jeans.  We also have included ribbon,  yarn,  and an old paint shirt that represents their love for making art.

I am looking forward to seeing what else our students bring to weave into our project.  Their have had some very creative ideas so far.

If you would like to help your child make a frame loom at home,  you might find this website helpful.  You can  use an old frame you might have in the back of the closet,  some nails,  and odds and ends from around the house to weave into the piece.  I hope you have fun turning your trash into treasure with your child!

http://www.ordinarylifemagic.com/2009/05/loom-and-weave.html

Character Counts

 

As we move into the second semester here at IPS,  we will be implementing various Character Counts activities with our students.  If  you are not familiar with Character Counts,  it is a program in which everyone is involved.  It is based on 6 ethical values that we all agree on.  These are referred to as the Six Pillars of Character.    They include:

1. Trustworthiness

2. Respect

3. Responsibility

4. Fairness

5. Caring

6. Citizenship

As you may recall,  the last couple of years I have done an all-building art project with our students.  This year the project for IPS will be based around Character Counts.  I am in need of a few items to help with the construction of this project as we  “Weave our way to Good Character”.

Each pillar has a specific color that it is linked to.  The 6 pillars we construct will be made of these 6 colors: Red, Orange,  Yellow/Gold, Green ,Blue,  Purple. A few samples of items we could use might include but are not limited to:

*old pieces of your child’s clothing,  maybe an old T-shirt or pair of pants no longer being worn

*small toys no longer being used (hot wheels,  a tiny doll such as Barbie or smaller,  maybe some hot wheel track?

*ribbon from a child’s Christmas/birthday gift

* hair ribbon

Please keep in mind,  the items sent,  will not be returned.  I am hoping to weave as many items as possible into our group project however I can’t promise they will all be used.  I want to thank you once again for helping us to make the art program in the Red Oak Schools A Shade Better!

 

Going “Out on a Limb”

With the cold weather and winter winds blowing,  I have been encouraging the kids at school to use this “indoor time” to their advantage and make it their own special drawing and creativity time.  This past week the 3rd graders have been learning how to draw birds.  I have explained to them that if you can break items down into various shapes,  it makes it easier to draw them.

For the cardinals that the students drew this past week, they first had to imagine the body as an oval.  They then had to view the head as a circle.  Next came the long flat oval or “fat pancake”  that made the wing.  It didn’t take long for one of the children to view the tail feathers as a long skinny rectangle.

I’m hoping to have most of the cardinals posted on this blog,  under the 3rd grade link by the end of the week.

Thanks!

I’m Lovin’ It!!!!

It just makes my day to see children that love to make art.  The smiles on their faces as they come into my art room don’t go un-noticed.  It gives me a heart warmed feeling to know that no matter how great or limited their artistic talent might be,  they are enjoying creating and using their imaginations.

When we finished a project early I used to always try to have another project for them to start on right away.  This worked well for some children but too often there were issues with too many projects going on at once.  Now,  I try to give the children what we call “free drawing” time.  I always make sure I have plenty of drawing paper and pencils on hand.  I also have lots of “how to” drawing books for the children to use.  I tell the kids that drawing is kind of like reading,  you can never practice too much.

What I have noticed since I have added our “free drawing” time,  is that many of the kids that often were messing around and not getting their work done were now working harder than ever to have their free drawing time.  They used to depend on me for ideas on what I thought they should draw.  Now,  they are letting their imaginations and creativity kick in,  without needing my assistance and I couldn’t be happier.

Building Knowledge About Architecture

This past couple of weeks the 4th graders at Washington School have been studying architecture. With many old homes in our town, it has been fun learning different architectural terminology. Some of the items we have talked about in class include dormers, Russian domes, Victorian turrets, bay windows, padillian windows, fanlights, columns, spindles, shingles, fish scales, siding, and the list goes on and on.

After learning these terms, we designed our own dream homes. This was really fun. We could include anything we wanted on it, whether it was a tower, columns, or a big, beautiful balcony, the sky was the limit.

One of the highlights to our study of architecture was a visit from a guest speaker, Daric O’Neal. He is the father of 4th grader, Lennon O’Neal. Mr. O’Neal is a project manager for the firm of Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture out of Omaha, Nebraska. We were lucky enough to have Mr. O’Neal come into all of our 4th grade art classes to share his expertise. He showed us blueprints, which were pretty cool. He also showed us models of buildings and some of the tools that he uses to draw his plans.

Mr. O’Neal showed us an awesome online drawing program called Sketchup, which you can use to design houses, buildings and many other things. He said we could even go online ourselves and try this free program, which we thought sounded like a lot of fun.

Mr. O’Neal decided that he wanted to become an architect when he was a 6th grader right here at Washington School. We were happy that he decided to come back and share his knowledge with us. We also learned that one of Mr. O’Neal’s things he likes to work with in his job is the reconstruction of old homes and buildings, although that’s not the only type of architectural work that he enjoys doing.

We were happy to have Mr. O’Neal as our special guest. It was nice of him to take time out of his busy schedule to come and share his knowledge with us. It was also nice of his firm,  Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture to let him visit us.

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